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Vi DAC Q&A #1

Modified on: Mon, 25 Sep, 2017 at 9:07 AM

1. I am not going to nitpick that several dates in yesterday’s status update are revisionist history (and have already seen posts contending that some numbers are simply untrue) but seems that there’s still approx. 154 Vi DAC Tubes to be delivered. Please confirm?

ANSWER: Yes. These numbers are in line with the past number we reported. And we have to admit the Vi Tube DAC roll out speed is slow due to two major factors.

(1) Two tube holes on top of chassis created a much higher fail rate on chassis until we found another good CNC vendor which has a 10,000 RPM drill speed and a nice way to provide fixture for the non-parallel wall design of the chassis. Please notice that the whole TOP of chassis is carved out by a single piece of T6061 aluminum. That means all usually clamping tools are not easy here. We demand a super smooth top surface finish, so that means we could not allow to leave any drill head jump or bad machine mark.

(2) Please check the photo below to see another part that CNC factory spent quite some time perfecting. The thin edge around the black display screen - this issue affects both Solid State and Tube Version. But now it is getting better on production fail rate.

2. How has the new chassis supplier worked out? If output has met spec, what’s the anticipated run rate at this time? If there’s still QC problems, what’s the issue(s)?

ANSWER: The new chassis supplier worked out! Their run rate is roughly 15 pcs per month. The fail rate should be much less than before.

3. Were these sourced from the same supplier who provided the batch of Pulse DAC boards that had to be scrapped? Is this another unresolved issue that’s been hidden by deleting IGG posts?

ANSWER: Vi DAC's PCB is NOT the one worked for Pulse DAC from beginning. And the current Vi Tube DAC PCB vendor is the same one we use to produce the flagship DaVinci DAC. No special issues on PCB reported.

4. Are all the various CCX modules ready? If not, which ones are not ready and what possible explanation could there be for these not being ready yet given the extended delay on the chassis production?

ANSWER: The all R&D of CCX has been completed. All the Vi Tube DACs will include CCX#1 which has RCA output as standard. We will make another production plan dedicated for CCX only. The CCX #2, #4, #6, #8 will have balanced output which needs LL transformer. We plan to do it all in one shot with one P.O to make sure the vendor would provide all at one time.

Be more clear. Both Single-ended and Balanced output CCX has been fully tested well in R&D. The remaining is the production only.

5. Can you confirm that longstanding IGG orders are being prioritized above any other brick & mortar or online retail orders or reviewer samples? If not, please provide a justification for this behavior.

ANSWER: There are less than 10 units go out for review and our retail channel. And only one tube version Vi DAC is out for demo sample. Even with the delivery demand from Amazon Vendor Central, we didn't send any units out. Most of the Vi DAC goes to our backers for sure. But we do need to sometimes create more demos or revamp awareness of Vi DAC in order to generate some revenue. We will detail the the reasons behind this in another Q&A.

6. Who is first in line for assembly and shipment, the Signature Edition or regular edition backers?

ANSWER: Our plan is to finish up the Signature Edition first. (Their CCX module will be ship out later)

8. Matrix display board firmware fix?

ANSWER: Our latest firmware on Matrix display board is 2.0. But all these versions didn't add any new features. It just fixed the boot up time sync. issue with the main board that sometimes causes low output on headphone or line out. Hardware wise, it is the same.

9. Any further firmware updates planned?

ANSWER: Yes. We will have version 3.0 of firmware plan in 2018 1Q since we just released the firmware 2.1 on 2Q 2017.